Page 74 of The Marriage Narrative
She paused in the doorway, throwing a disbelieving look over her shoulder. “Jordan, I’m not in the mood for whatever you’re doing, okay? Cut it out.”
“Prank?”He stared after her, mouth hanging open and without a single thought passing between his ears. Everything around him felt…blurry. Dreamlike. The past six hours had all been nothing but vivid scenes invented by his sleeping imagination because how was this real life?Hislife?
By the time he recovered enough to join her in the kitchen, she had the makings of a fruit salad well underway. She’d gathered all her favorites, which reminded him that she wanted to go berry picking before they went home.
Zinnia had always felt so real to him—a tangible whirlwind of light and energy. If he looked away for a single second, he’d miss something new about her, like the way she hummed made-up songs whenever she concentrated. Or found the nearest window and watched the sky when she was bored. The way she was constantly in motion, even while sitting—crossing her legs, wiggling her foot, tapping her thighs, leaning in until she was lying on him to share something on her phone.
Her existence grounded him in a way very few things did.
Jordan stood next to her and softly asked, “You think today was a prank?”
“Of course it was.” She popped a grape in her mouth and began listing her evidence—the timing, the camera pod behavior, the size of the crowd outside the store, the suspicious evacuation plan, the lack of weapons, how some people seemed excited under the veneer of concern, the way production ignored her afterward when she didn’t react the way they’d hoped, how fast it hit the media as a last resort…
Hearing her reasoning laid out like that, he understood how she’d arrived at her very wrong conclusion.
“Can we—” He paused, closing his eyes and exhaling to stay calm. “Before you call Grace, can we talk?”
Once she finished making her salad, they sat together at the circular kitchen table, knee to knee. She pushed the bowl closer to him and handed him a fork.
“Thanks,” he said, setting it down. “I want you to listen to me, okay? And I’m gonna need you to believe what I tell you.”
“All right.”
“That attack was real. As far as we know, Robert Lazarus has been actively stalking Lulie for eight months. She has a restraining order against him, but stalking laws barely exist. Most law enforcement won’t step in until harm is actually done like today. He knew everything—where she’d be and who’d be there. He hired those two men as a distraction to overwhelm security because he knew the employee break room was the secondary plan if immediate evacuation wasn’t possible.”
“Because the security guards had the car keys.” She suddenly pushed the bowl away. “How did he know all that?”
“Months of planning and searching for the right people willing to name their price. An employee confessed to revealing Lulie’s schedule to her cousin, who then was paid by Lazarus for the information. Our security is still weeding out the internal leak.”
“No.” She began shaking her head. “No. He didn’t even have a weapon. He was just…there.”
“He probably thought he wouldn’t need one. There were two more men waiting in the utility hall that got away. The police think they planned to take her to a second location.” Jordan met her increasingly distraught eyes. “Zinnia, you really did save Lulie’s life.”
“Oh my god.”She covered her face and immediately folded in half, laying her head on the table.
“It’s okay. You’re both safe now.” He rubbed across her shaking shoulders. “Lulie’s been through a lot, and she’ll get through this too. And I know we didn’t warn you about this, but we never thought—” His voice broke, and he had to stop to catch his breath.
Marrying him had put her life in danger.Hebrought her here.
Zinnia let out a high-pitched whine as she raised her head. He thought she’d been crying, but no—
“I can’t believe I tried to go easy on that bastard!”
“Easy? You knocked him unconscious.”
“I should’ve broken his jaw! Or at least knocked some teeth loose!” But her anger quickly extinguished into a wail. “I’msobad at this and I’mtiredof trying.”
Jordan’s blood ran cold as her words hit him.
She shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t belong here.”
“That’s not true.” His throat was tight, voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You do because…I do. We’re in this together. We—”
“You’reone of them and they’ve made it crystal fucking clear, time and again, that I’m not. Those people don’t give two shits about me!”
“That’s not true. They didn’t mean—”
“Do you know why security told me I had to ride back by myself? Because I wasn’tallowedin the car with your mom and your sister.” She abruptly stood up. “I can’t do this. I have to call Grace.”
